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Aurora theater shooting: This time, the story was about home

By Pierrette J. ShieldsLongmont Times-Call

Posted:
07/23/2012 12:40:53 PM MDT

Updated:
07/23/2012 12:58:02 PM MDT

Posters filled with messages and prayers for the victims of the Century 16 theater shooting sit among the gifts and token left at a makeshift memorial on Sunday evening across the street from the theater.
(Pierrette J. Shields/Times-Call)

AURORA -- This time, I didn't have the benefit of distance -- emotional or geographic.

This time, I stood among the stunned and shaken, among those trying to process the horror.

This time, I was one of those at a candlelight vigil to remember the victims of an unspeakable crime.

Across the street, the bright neon sign of the Century 16 theater cut the darkness of a balmy summer night in Aurora, my hometown.

Many wept. One man raged and stomped in anger, and lashed around in apparent isolation. Some wrote feelings on poster boards, while others simply held a loved one close, staring at and hypnotized by the flickering light of a candle's flame.

(Pierrette J. Shields)

I was not at the Sunday night vigil in my capacity as a criminal justice reporter to interview and record the news. I was not there to tell other people's stories or help them reflect.

I was there because in many, many ways, Aurora is my home and this crime felt personal, if unfortunately familiar.

The frantic Friday morning accounting of family members concluded with all Shields' noses counted. I was out of town and among the last to be found because I didn't mention the trip to everyone. My phone apparently buzzed throughout the morning before my friend woke me in our hotel room and said, "You have to wake up and answer your phone. There has been a shooting in Aurora."

I checked my messages and replied my assurances.

"If anyone would go to a midnight movie it would be you," my sister-in-law replied.

Mourners at Sunday night's vigil gathered around 12 crosses erected representing the victims of the Century 16 theater shooting. Some attendees wrote messages to those lost in the shooting directly on the crosses.
(Pierrette J. Shields/Times-Call)

I was born on the hospital campus where dozens of victims were taken after the Friday morning shooting at the theater that left 12 dead. I was raised just a few miles from the mall and attended daily classes at the high school where survivors were huddled as police began to disentangle the event. The streets where I rode my bike and eagerly awaited the release of the very first Batman movie, the mall I haunted as a teenager, the home I still visit every weekend and spend every holiday have joined a grim fraternity of places whose names have become synonymous with violence and horror: "Columbine," "Virginia Tech," and now "Aurora." As the weekend unfolded, my niece discovered a close friend was listed in critical condition. Surreally, a colleague and friend in Denver covered the girl's story for one of the broadcast stations.

Despite years of experience and a job that has put me on the frontlines of horrific crimes and crippling tragedies, I was not prepared to understand the shootings. I may be fluent in police tactics and court procedures and I may have read and written much about criminal minds and motives, but I am left with no insight.

The time I have spent with crime victims, opening myself to experiencing their anguish to write their stories honestly, has not prepared me to understand this crime, this massacre of my neighbors.

So I did what so many do when horror takes human form. I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with others and gazed down at the 12 white crosses representing each of the lives taken on July 20, and accepted that I didn't get it and wouldn't and that it was good that I couldn't. I thought about those who died saving others and the first responders who helped victims and rushed them from the scene.

My eyes fell to a large Batman logo on a towel left at the makeshift memorial, and I realized that one real-life villain unmasked countless real-life heroes in Aurora.

Hundreds of mourners gathered Sunday night at a makeshift memorial across the street from where 12 people were killed early Friday morning in a shooting at the Century 16 theater in Aurora.
(Pierrette J. Shields/Times-Call)

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